A bill that would give the secretary of the state more oversight of local ballot purchases seems set to eclipse the legislation that Rep. Charles D. Clemons Jr., D-Bridgeport, submitted in the aftermath of the Election Day mishaps in his city.

Sen. Gayle S. Slossberg, D-Milford, co-chairman of the GAE Committee, said Clemons is free to come to the panel and promote his proposal, which would include taking enough money from the Citizens'Election Fund to have ballots on hand in every town and city for all 2 million registered voters in Connecticut.

"As someone from Bridgeport, and being close to this election as well as other elections and seeing the problems that occur in Bridgeport, I feel that it should be a constitutional right," Clemons said. "Just like one man, one vote, it should be one voter, one ballot. It should go hand in hand. I think it would increase voter turnout, especially with people who have been disenfranchised so long that apathy has set in so much they think their vote doesn't count."

Clemons filed the legislative proposal shortly after the Election Day debacle, when city voter registrars failed to have enough ballots on hand for a surge in turnout sparked by an appearance three days earlier by President Barack Obama.

Thousands of photocopied ballots that could not be read by the optical-scan tally machines prompted a three-day delay in getting the city's totals, postponing a final resolution of the race for governor. An informal recount of the city's ballots sponsored by the Connecticut Post found that one-fourth of the photocopied ballots had been miscounted, though the outcome of the race was not affected.

Blank ballots cost between 20 and 40 cents apiece, and some states, including Massachusetts, pay for them. That is not the case in Connecticut.

"The costs would be miniscule compared to the bottom line of everybody having an opportunity," Clemons said.

Secretary of the State Denise W. Merrill will join Slossberg, other committee members and voting rights advocates on Monday at 9:30 a.m. to support a bill that would mandate Merrill's oversight of the way local registrars order election ballots.

Slossberg said it doesn't make sense to have ballots available in every town and city for every elector, because even the highest turnout towns have 30 percent or more of registered voters who don't get to the polls. Bridgeport is among the cities with the lowest turnout for elections.

"We had better make sure everyone who comes to vote has a ballot and have some accountability for that," Slossberg said.

Cheri Quickmire, executive director of Common Cause Connecticut, the voting-rights watchdog group, said that the Citizens' Election Fund, paid for by abandoned state property and which has been raided in recent years by state lawmakers trying to balance the budget, might be able to support Clemons' plan.